Description

The Easiest and Fastest Way to Learn French Whether you want to travel, communicate with friends or colleagues, reconnect with family, or just understand more of what’s going on in the world around you, learning French will expand your horizons and immeasurably enrich your life.

The best part is that it doesn’t have to be difficult or take years to master. Thirty minutes a day is all it takes, and we get you speaking right from the first day. Pimsleur courses use a scientifically-proven method that puts you in control of your learning. If you’ve tried other language learning methods but found they simply didn’t stick, then you owe it to yourself to give Pimsleur a try.

Why Pimsleur? - Quick + Easy – Only 30 minutes a day. - Portable + Flexible – Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life. - Proven Method – Works when other methods fail. - Self-Paced – Go fast or go slow – it’s up to you. - Based in Science – Developed using proven research on memory and learning. - Cost-effective – Less expensive than classes or immersion, and features all native speakers. - Genius – Triggers your brain’s natural aptitude to learn. - Works for everyone – Recommended for ages 13 and above.

What You’ll Learn Builds upon skills taught in Pimsleur’s French Levels 1 and 2.

In the first 10 lessons, you will expand your vocabulary and increase your fluency to an even higher level. You’ll gain experience participating in many informal and some formal discussions on practical, social, and semiprofessional topics. You’ll skillfully form longer, more complex sentences, and most importantly, you’ll find yourself being understood, even by native speakers unused to dealing with foreigners. You’ll be able to join in conversations eagerly, confident of being understood.

In the next 10 lessons, your skills will demonstrate ever-increasing mastery of French. Speaking with grace and complete naturalness, you’ll enjoy fluid conversations on many new subjects. Delving deeper into cultural norms and situations, you’ll find yourself responding effortlessly, and able to choose from a wide accumulation of vocabulary and structures.

In the final 10 lessons, you’re nearing fluency with agile responses, and a natural sounding, near-native accent. You’re able to utilize the language in subtle ways, and speak using past, present, and future tenses. Self-confidence soars as you no longer experience the language and culture as a foreigner, but as someone with a deepening insight into the French-speaking world.

Reading Lessons are included at the end of Lesson 30. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to give you practice reading French, to provide vocabulary and improve pronunciation. Before you know it, you’ll be reading French with the ease and flexibility of a native speaker.

The Pimsleur Method We make no secret of what makes this powerful method work so well. Paul Pimsleur spent his career researching and perfecting the precise elements anyone can use to learn a language quickly and easily. Here are a few of his “secrets”:

The Principle of Anticipation In the nanosecond between a cue and your response, your brain has to work to come up with the right word. Having to do this boosts retention, and cements the word in your mind.

Core Vocabulary Words, phrases, and sentences are selected for their usefulness in everyday conversation. We don’t overwhelm you with too much, but steadily increase your ability with every lesson.

Graduated Interval Recall Reminders of new words and structures come up at the exact interval for maximum retention and storage into your long-term memory.

Organic Learning You work on multiple aspects of the language simultaneously. We integrate grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, melody, and intonation into every lesson, which allows you to experience the language as a living, expressive form of human culture.

Learning in Context Research has shown that learning new words in context dramatically accelerates your ability to remember. Every scene in every Pimsleur lesson is set inside a conversation between two people. There are no drills, and no memorization necessary for success.

Active Participation The Pimsleur Method + active learner participation = success. This method works with every language and every learner who follows it. You gain the power to recall and use what you know, and to add new words easily, exactly as you do in English.

The French Language French is spoken by 55 million speakers in France, 3 million in Belgium, 1.5 million in Switzerland, 6.5 million in Canada, and 5 million in former French and Belgian colonies. It is an official language in 44 countries and an official language of the United Nations. An estimated 50 million people around the world speak French as a second language.

Tech Talk - CDs are formatted for playing in all CD players, including car players, and users can copy files for use in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

The Easiest and Fastest Way to Learn French Whether you want to travel, communicate with friends or colleagues, reconnect with family, or just understand more of what’s going on in the world around you, learning French will expand your horizons and immeasurably enrich your life.

The best part is that it doesn’t have to be difficult or take years to master. Thirty minutes a day is all it takes, and we get you speaking right from the first day. Pimsleur courses use a scientifically-proven method that puts you in control of your learning. If you’ve tried other language learning methods but found they simply didn’t stick, then you owe it to yourself to give Pimsleur a try.

Why Pimsleur? - Quick + Easy – Only 30 minutes a day. - Portable + Flexible – Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life. - Proven Method – Works when other methods fail. - Self-Paced – Go fast or go slow – it’s up to you. - Based in Science – Developed using proven research on memory and learning. - Cost-effective – Less expensive than classes or immersion, and features all native speakers. - Genius – Triggers your brain’s natural aptitude to learn. - Works for everyone – Recommended for ages 13 and above.

What You’ll Learn Builds upon skills taught in Pimsleur’s French Levels 1 and 2.

In the first 10 lessons, you will expand your vocabulary and increase your fluency to an even higher level. You’ll gain experience participating in many informal and some formal discussions on practical, social, and semiprofessional topics. You’ll skillfully form longer, more complex sentences, and most importantly, you’ll find yourself being understood, even by native speakers unused to dealing with foreigners. You’ll be able to join in conversations eagerly, confident of being understood.

In the next 10 lessons, your skills will demonstrate ever-increasing mastery of French. Speaking with grace and complete naturalness, you’ll enjoy fluid conversations on many new subjects. Delving deeper into cultural norms and situations, you’ll find yourself responding effortlessly, and able to choose from a wide accumulation of vocabulary and structures.

In the final 10 lessons, you’re nearing fluency with agile responses, and a natural sounding, near-native accent. You’re able to utilize the language in subtle ways, and speak using past, present, and future tenses. Self-confidence soars as you no longer experience the language and culture as a foreigner, but as someone with a deepening insight into the French-speaking world.

Reading Lessons are included at the end of Lesson 30. These lessons, which total about one hour, are designed to give you practice reading French, to provide vocabulary and improve pronunciation. Before you know it, you’ll be reading French with the ease and flexibility of a native speaker.

The Pimsleur Method We make no secret of what makes this powerful method work so well. Paul Pimsleur spent his career researching and perfecting the precise elements anyone can use to learn a language quickly and easily. Here are a few of his “secrets”:

The Principle of Anticipation In the nanosecond between a cue and your response, your brain has to work to come up with the right word. Having to do this boosts retention, and cements the word in your mind.

Core Vocabulary Words, phrases, and sentences are selected for their usefulness in everyday conversation. We don’t overwhelm you with too much, but steadily increase your ability with every lesson.

Graduated Interval Recall Reminders of new words and structures come up at the exact interval for maximum retention and storage into your long-term memory.

Organic Learning You work on multiple aspects of the language simultaneously. We integrate grammar, vocabulary, rhythm, melody, and intonation into every lesson, which allows you to experience the language as a living, expressive form of human culture.

Learning in Context Research has shown that learning new words in context dramatically accelerates your ability to remember. Every scene in every Pimsleur lesson is set inside a conversation between two people. There are no drills, and no memorization necessary for success.

Active Participation The Pimsleur Method + active learner participation = success. This method works with every language and every learner who follows it. You gain the power to recall and use what you know, and to add new words easily, exactly as you do in English.

The French Language French is spoken by 55 million speakers in France, 3 million in Belgium, 1.5 million in Switzerland, 6.5 million in Canada, and 5 million in former French and Belgian colonies. It is an official language in 44 countries and an official language of the United Nations. An estimated 50 million people around the world speak French as a second language.

Tech Talk - CDs are formatted for playing in all CD players, including car players, and users can copy files for use in iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Good results with French I and II led me to buy Pimsleur's French III and I am pleased. I am up to lesson eleven and things are going well. My one wish is that there was a way to get live feedback and unprogrammed, real time, conversations. That is not in the cards for a program like Pimsler, but I am doing "Meetups" in the LA area to fill in.

My goal is to be able to carry on a worthwhile and meaningful conversation when I visit the Rhone region of France in October 2015. AS things stand I think it will all come together.

Right now I am verging on acquiring French. That is to say I am reaching the end of my silent, listening period in real conversations, and I am essaying to attempt to carry on real world conversations.

I am now sometimes having dreams in French and unlike the past, I am understanding the conversations in those dreams. I also find myself silently doing simultaneous translations to French during daily conversations in English.

So, if you gone through French Ii-I can honestly recommend the Pimsleur product on the basis of cost and quality.

I took the modern Greek course before and found it helpful, but it only went as far as Level III. I had studied French in high school and college and thought I was terrific until I tried to speak to French people, when I discovered I was hopeless. I'm now almost finished the Pimsleur French 3 and plan to buy 4 and 5. I start my day with it while walking on a treadmill, and sometimes repeat the lesson later in the day. I also read fairly easy novels in French, which helps with spelling when I hear a new word. I'm going to Paris in May and hoping I can actually communicate in French for the first time.

The Pimsleur program is an outstanding supplement to my weekly French lesson. If one can put the daily time in as required, it will work. It has helped with my pronunciationand given me the confidence to speak to other Francophones.I highly recommend this program. I encourage Pimsleur to extend as much as possible more advance lessons for purchase.I will be sorry when I have reached the limit to what they have provided so far, it is that good.Stuart

I'd like to start this review by saying *Hooray*! The entire time I've been working through Phase 3, there's been this murky cloud over my head, that Phase 4 would be the end of my Pimsleur French experience, and that all my time, money and effort would basically be left hanging with an incomplete understanding of French. But, they've got a Phase 5 now! Hooray! Pimsleur folks, please don't stop at 5, keep going! Surely, you've got the "Pimsleur" formula, audio recording/editing technology is cheaper than its ever been, and there are 50 million people who speak the language that you can cherry pick from profitably! Keep it going!

I finished Unit 30 today. I'll be going back through them all again, before I move on to Phase 4, but I WILL be buying Phase 4, and Phase 5. (Ahem, and 6 and 7 and 8, hint hint).

I previously posted a review of Phase 2, where I described myself as a factory worker who's goal was to learn another language as I worked. Nothing has changed in that respect, but I now have 3 phases I've gone through, and can look back at the last year I've spent learning French via Pimsleur. A funny side-effect is the cockiness - even after Phase 1, when really I had hardly any true knowledge of French once it was done, I still felt like I could go out and converse with people (which is, I think, a testament to how ingrained the lessons get in your head). Once I got into Phase 2, I not only realized how silly that was, but my understandings were enhanced exponentially by the end of Phase 2.

Now that I've finished Phase 3, I say the same thing. Early on in Phase 3 there are several words from the earlier Phases that they tell you not to bother to use anymore, *even though* they were integral to the early Phases. So in a sense, Phase 2 is "meaningless", except its not, because by about Unit 20 in Phase 3, they up the speed AND the depth, and really start getting you to speak entire complex sentences; this is *only* possible because of all the setup work they did with the earlier Phases, whether they ditch some stuff or not. And I'm saying, it works!

(See me being cocky again? Once I start Phase 4, I'll probably be reminded yet again of how little I know - except that, I'm getting to a point where I can read French websites, for instance, and pick out some basic phrases and words..., so I'm more sure that I have a basic foundation than ever.)

My only "complaint" would be one that I made in my last review - once we get basic phrases and stuff down, then what is missing is a lifetime's worth of actual common words to plug into the forms.

For instance, I still don't know many colors, emotions, words for Mother or Father, all my Months, and I know I can't do the instant math that is required in their numbers system. Also, body parts, pieces of clothing, etc. Now, I *could* go and look these things up (on occasion I have done this). But my goal is to learn this stuff while I work, and I can't work and be staring at a computer/phone screen all day.

That is why I'm glad they're doing more Phases, instead of pursuing some fad "Multimedia" approach, just because all the other companies are doing that. If the basic Pimsleur concept works, why change it just to follow the crowd?

And it DOES work. I said it already, I'll be buying the next Phases. Highly recommended!